From A Cantor To A Gallop

Steve Benen hammers House minority leader Eric Cantor for his and and an aide's bizarre assertion that Ronald Reagan, who raised taxes more than any predecessor, didn't raise taxes:

Why do Cantor, his press secretary, and Republicans everywhere deny what is plainly true? Because reality is terribly inconvenient: the GOP demi-god rejected the right-wing line on always opposing tax increases; he willingly compromised with Democrats on revenue; and the economy soared after Reagan raised taxes, disproving the Republican assumption that tax increases always push the nation towards recessions.

In other words, Reagan’s legacy makes the contemporary Republican Party look ridiculous. No wonder Cantor’s press secretary started yelling: [Leslie] Stahl [who was interviewing Cantor on CBS] was bringing up facts that are never supposed to be repeated out loud.

Reagan was guilty of other acts of apostasy against 21st century hyper-conservatism as well. Cantor looks silly saying otherwise. Could it be this is the first time he ever got the question, at least in a setting where a camera was boring in so tight that you could see the pores under his makeup? If so, good for Stahl.

Here's what he should've said: "President Reagan was the first to stand in the path of the prevailing policy juggernaut of his time and say, quoting Bill Buckley the only time he used a one-syllable word, 'Stop!' Of course he didn't accomplish all he hoped when it comes to diminishing the size and scope of a coercive federal establishment. Of course he sometimes had to compromise. His courage inspires us not to."

Or some such. I don't really want Cantor to sound smarter, because he's been wrong about the budget.

The Evil Of Tahrir Square

Lara Logan of CBS News speaks once, and only once, about the 40-minute sexual assault by 200-300 men that she suffered in the Arab street.

Al-Qaeda Tabula Rasa

CBS News:

An overwhelming number of Afghan men living in the region that is a major front in the U.S.-led war on the Taliban don't know anything about the terrorist attacks that brought international soldiers to Afghanistan, according to a report from an international policy think tank...

Obama In "You Talkin' To Me?" Mode

Mark Knoller, the veteran CBS News radio reporter, had stayed behind in the press room Thursday afternoon in Chicago after listening to an audio feed of President Obama's speech at a fundraiser. Obama's microphone was left on, so Knoller heard his private conversations with home town donors about last week's 11th hour budget deal. "Politico" reports:

Obama, recalling a conversation with Boehner staff: “I said, ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid? … Put it in a separate bill. … We'll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. BUT DON’T TRY TO SNEAK THIS THROUGH.’ … When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant … This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for … So it's not on the level.”

He Quit. He Went To China.

I wonder if CBS's Bob Schieffer's an Episcopalian. In a commentary this morning hailing the opening of the Nixon library's new Watergate exhibit, he sliced 37's legacy right down the middle:

Nixon's disregard of the law and the Constitution was disgraceful. That is part of his legacy and his apologists cannot change that.

Yet, Nixon was far ahead of his party and American public opinion when he made his courageous opening to China and his arms control agreements with the Soviets.

Those were monumental achievements and will be remembered as such, whatever his critics say.

One of the veteran newsman's less thoughtful observations about Nixon helped persuade me to start this blog.

Will Egypt Be Democratic For Its Women?

Freedom will begin to die if people like CBS News' Lara Logan ever stop running the risks of battlefields and revolutions. Journalists who are attacked or injured while keeping us informed deserve to be called heroes no less than the volunteers in our armed forces.

Sneering at media victims or saying they asked for it is unforgivable. Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg rightly castigate those on the left and right who have slipped beyond the pale in their commentary about the sexual assault Logan suffered. And yet (how best to put this, since my question was prompted by one of the slobs Sullivan and Goldberg quote?) I wonder if the media are being attentive enough to women's interests in their coverage of the upheavals in the Arab world.

Was anyone raped by a gang of men in Tienanmen Square in 1989, for instance, or in Chicago or Paris in 1968? You might reply that it's not fair to Egyptians to try to make the attack on Logan emblematic of a larger problem with gender in their society. Yes, a significant though still relatively small percentage of the demonstrators were women. Women are much better off in Egypt than Saudi Arabia.

Yet 82% of Egyptians still believe that adulterers should be murdered -- and please tell me the last time you saw a photo or video of a man being stoned to death in the Islamic world. Only 41% of Egyptian men believe women should be allowed to serve in top government positions. CBS itself wrote of the indignities women usually suffer on the streets of Cairo, adding that demonstration organizers took care to minimize these in Tahrir Square. Was that just for the sake of Western media crews such as Logan's, ironically enough? We certainly wouldn't fall for it if habitual abuse of members of an ethnic minority was being hushed up for PR purposes.

The attack on Logan should help us remember that Egypt is having a mostly men's revolution to decide which new group of mostly men will be in charge next. Does the U.S. have its political house in order when it comes to gender equality? Not by any means. Our racial politics still usually come first. Gender even took a back seat when we were debating the lower Manhattan cultural center and mosque. But it ought to be worth an occasional mention that we're considerably better off than Egypt and that the democratic ideal toward which it and other mostly Muslim countries are finally straining grows from the radical equality of all people, especially men and women.

The Heart Of The White House

One of the pleasures of my years at the Nixon library was working with one of our preferred caterers, Bruno Serato, owner of The White House restaurant in Anaheim, and his gracious colleagues. He was too humble ever to mention that since 2005 he's served 250,000 free meals to children at the Boys and Girls Clubs, as revealed in this August 2010 CBS News segment.

Check The White House out here; and make your holiday reservation today.

Hat tip to OC Weekly

The Dog And Elephant (No, Not a Pub!)

Hat tip to Mark Shier